Tabard Park holds some good memories for me, as we use to go there from Webb Street School (1947/53?) to play football, if my memory holds me right the pitch was that red stuff, was it ash? In those days, it had a wire fence all the way around it but no health and safety then. At that time the fence was held up by big iron girders, which believe it or not were on the inside. At that age, you chased and kick anything that moved, unfortunately I managed to kick one of the girders, don’t think I broke my foot but it hurt like hell and stopped me playing for quite a few weeks. In those days if you were lucky enough to have football boots, they had hard toes and came up past your ankles with studs held in by small nails which would come up through you boots and stick into your foot, by the end of the game your feet were covered in blood. At that time, I had a pair of hand me downs which were about two sizes to big, so I had newspaper stuffed up the toes. Shin pads were those little paperback books which I think were called Hank Janson?, still they done the job. I can remember The Royal Oak pub and St Stephens Church also some of the surrounding streets. I can vaguely remember an Ice Cream Factory in Hankey Place, though it was only small, also a butter factory next door.

This is where Tabard Park used to be.

Last edited by kiwi on Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hi, yes remember Tabard Park well, especially in mid/late 50s when we used to explore the old underground shelters which led down from steps - the green area was covered in them - perhaps this will preclude any building on the green area because of what lay underneath!

The major part of this estate lies in Southwark with the Bermondsey part extending from Long Lane. It was redeveloped in 1934 by acquisition of factories and other premises in Long Lane to form the Tabard Garden Estate as we know it today, and it remains more or less the same as when the development took place some 75 years ago.

An area north of Weston Street to Sterry Street and from Long Lane to Tabard Street was affected by the development as we can see indside the RED area on the 1914 map.

Kent Street was renamed Tabard Street from 1877, and was, in its time, the only road south to Dover and it joined Kent Street Road (renamed Old Kent Road), at the Bricklayers Arms which was Coaching Inn in its time.

In earlier times it had been a hard road to travel. Chaucer and his Pilgrims travelled this road to Canterbury and recorded at the Thomas a Becket (another coaching inn) "bodies of hanged criminals being left to rot, remained hangingon gibbets".

Great Dover Street, known earlier as Church Street, to the west was much narrower than Kent Street (Tabard Street) and joined Kent Street at the Bricklayers Arms. But in 1814 traffic was diverted down Church Street (Great Dover Street) to solve congestion problems.

I will endeavour to put pictures of Tabard Estate and the surrounding area on the forum with pictures prior to the 1934 deveopment, but without the "Today" picture as many of the streets no longer exist.

We can fairly estimate when the properties were built from Harwoods map of the area, the 1799edition which shows Wickham Place formerly named Wycomb Place, but Staple Street, Delph Street, Walker Street and Camelot Street, (formerly Castle Street) did not appear till around 1820. Minto Street appears still later, to the south, it was still very rural with market gardens and fields.

One can imagine the conditions on people's lives, without sanitation and the Cholera outbreaks that seemed never ending in this area from about 1820, caused by the open sewers running into the Thames, at the same location where the drinking water was extracted. This was a recipe for disaster, and it was only a matter of time before it would take place.

We can now look at Wickham Place which was about a third of the way down Tabard Street and was the opposite end of Chapel Place but on the south side, now long gone in the 1935 redeveloment of the area and is now part of Tabard Gardens

Wickham Place fromTabard Street Note the shop on the left has a Christmas club and coal for sale and the shop on the right is a brush maker

After 1814 through traffic was diverted from Kent Street as it was known via Great Dover Street but it was the middle of the century before any improvements to the area were made. It started by changing the name of Kent Street to Tabard Street in 1877 but the main changes were to come with the formation of the LCC and in 1910 most of the east side was cleared and large dwelling blocks were built and Tabard Gardens was formed to give the residents breathing space